What’s Going On?

The San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers located within Golden Gate Park is one of oldest buildings in Golden Gate Park that I have never been to before until now. I’ve always grew up walking around Golden Gate Park and I’ve even been to the gardens outside of the greenhouse, but not until recently have I ever been inside the building. The building is a beautiful piece of architecture and I don’t know why I haven’t been here before.

Inside the conservatory there are plants and flowers of all sorts from different regions of the world. There are 5 separate exhibits within the building. There are 4 exhibits that are permanent at the conservatory and they are Lowland Tropics, Highland Tropics, Potted Plants, and Aquatic Plants. The 5th room is a special exhibit room. The theme for this exhibit currently is Edible Expeditions.

In the Edible Expeditions room there are plants from Asia, North America, and South America. There are even some island type fruits from the Pacific. The most delicious looking edible plant there was the pineapple plant and a lychee tree. I was tempted to give these a taste, but of course was not allowed to.

The rest of the buildings exhibits are highly humid and I suggest if you are wanting to check out these rooms that you bring a towel with you on a cool San Francisco day because you will be sweating if you are not use to the temperature change. The most beautiful of orchids are on display all over the four exhibits. If you are a green thumb and you love orchids this is the place to go.

The Conservatory of Flowers is opened Tuesday - Sunday; 9am - 5pm. Tickets are $7 for Adults, $5 for Youth 12-17, Seniors 65+, and students with ID, $2 for Children 5-11, and Free for Children 4 and below. There are discounts available for residents of SF and the first Tuesday of the month admission is Free.

A selection of pictures of the SF Conservatory of Flowers can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. If you would like to see more visit the Conservatory up close and personal. More information can be found following this link. Please feel free to leave me a comment below for the pictures and/or the posting.

Hasbro’s Candy Land, an iconic game almost every American has played at least once while growing up celebrates 60 years. For this anniversary celebration Hasbro had turned Lombard Street, which is San Francisco’s iconic landmark known to be “The World’s Crookedest Street”, into a giant Candy Land gameboard.

Children from the UCSF Children’s Hospital were invited to attend and play a game on this real life sized game. Even the colored game pieces were large, just imagine trying to shuffle the deck before the game. The children were divided up into four teams. Team colors were red, blue, green and yellow. As the cards were drawn the teams travelled down the hill any means possible. Some children ran down the hill, some skipped, some walked, and even some slid down the hill on their stomachs.

Along the gameboard were three Candy Land characters. King Kandy, Princess Lolly and Princess Frostine. They stood in their respective positions (Princess Frostine at Snowflake Lake, Princess Lolly in the Lollipop Woods, and King Kandy up the road from Candy Castle) on the gameboard until the children had passed their spots on the board. After all the children passed these locations each of three characters accompanied one of the teams. The team to finally reach the winning square was the yellow team. The team was congratulated with a hailstorm of confetti and lots of jumping up and down.

Following the game, the four teams gathered around the Candy Land decorated birthday cake and celebrated Candy Land’s birthday by singing “Happy Birthday”. The cake was vanilla flavored with a chocolate filling and covered in a fondant. Children took home a game of Candy Land and a bag filled with their selection of candies.

Pictures are added to the gallery click picture link above.

Burlingame is home to one of the most unique museums in the world, the PEZ Museum. The PEZ Museum is a small one of a kind gem that you can only find here in the Bay Area and if you are lucky enough, you can come and witness with your own eyes the world’s largest PEZ dispenser. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10am - 6pm.

Upon entering the museum, there is a little shop that is open to the public to purchase all sorts of PEZ dispensers and some hard to find collectible sets. In another room of the business space is the museum where all types of information on PEZ and other collectible toys can be found. Open to visitors of all ages, the museum mainly focuses it’s attention on toys that the older generation have come to grow up with. It is very nostalgic when first entering the room because at one point in time almost all Americans have owned at least one of the few items that were on display.

At the PEZ museum not only will you find PEZ dispensers and their memorabilia, but you will find a display for Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, Tinker Toys, Mr. Potato Head, View-Master, Colorforms, Etch-a-sketch, Play-Doh, Lego, Easy Bake Oven, and other sets from times past.

Information that I learned while at the museum were that: PEZ was first developed as a peppermint candy which was developed in Austria by Eduard Haas III. PEZ derives it’s name from the German word for peppermint, which is Pfefferminz. PEZ came out with it’s first dispenser in 1950, they were in the shape of a cigarette lighter. A few years later heads were placed on the top of the dispenser. Since then over 550 types of heads for the dispensers have been created. PEZ candy is produced here in the U.S., while the dispensers and the heads are made in Hungary and China. PEZ dispensers were always made of plastic except for the metal spring that pushes up the candy. The Guinness Book of World Record’s Biggest PEZ dispenser can be found at the PEZ museum in Burlingame. It is 85 lbs. in weight, 7ft. 10in. in height, can hold up to 24 dispensers, and can hold 6480 PEZ candies.

Upon reading more information about the museum, it has received a lawsuit from the makers of PEZ regarding this institution… bummer. I hope everything works out for the museum.